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#‎Brexit‬ has been the result of disingeneous misinformation, political charades, cooked up upon the fear and rage of the disenfranchised. Of course, now all ways to limit the fall-out of this epic fallacy need to be explored. Tragically, all the ’second referendum‘ or ’stay in through the backdoor‘ solutions will work like kerosene for the populist fire against domination by an unaccountable elite.

This is why the STATUS QUO is no longer sustainable. The toxic mix of financial capitalism, neoliberal politics and unaccountable technocracy has created this atmosphere of fear over social decline and loss of identity, this rage against the Establishment which can and will be exploited by hatemongers or used by the frustrated to blow off some steam.

A paradigm crisis cannot be solved by policy. To stamp out the fires, we need a new ‪#‎socialcontract‬ for Europe.

This social contract may or may not end in a ‪#‎EuropeanRepublic‬. What is at this point more pressing than constitutional engineering is a consensus what Europe stands for, what is its raison d’état, and even its very reason of being.

Europe is either the heir of ‪#‎Enlightenment‬ or it is not at all. Its reason of being is to provide full capabilities to all citizens for their pursuit of happiness.

Second, Europe needs an ‪#‎identity‬ which gives a sense of belonging in the vertigo of change. A sense of identity needs an inside and an outside. This means Europe needs to confidently say what it is, and what it is not. Define who is a citizen of this community and who is not. Europe needs a body politic, thus it cannot be endless, it needs ‪#‎borders‬. This does neither mean to retreat into Fortress Europe nor to define European identity in nativist terms. It means to confidently assert Englightenment values in a spirit of being a good neighbor.

Finally, Europe needs a ‪#‎NewDeal‬ which includes all citizens, not only the „performers“, while the rest is policed by an ever-growing security state. If many fear they have been left behind by self-serving elites, Europe as a society will succumb to the demons of its violent past. Europe needs to give shelter to all those who fear that the ‚world has gone mad‘. An inclusive social compromise is needed which gives every citizen a stake, a say, an opportunity.

Thank you, Marc, for your comment here. Fron reading you, I infer that you agree with most of the Continental Manifesto. Those lines of yours are a worthy contribution to the transnational public debate this website aims to trigger and, as such, they deserve to be published as a (short but substantial) paper, in the waiting of a longer one, that will always be welcome. Since I detected shades of dissent or reservation on some issues or topics, I waited until today to have time enough and write an answer that will contribute to feed the general debate. You and other visitors will soon find this answer under the tab